Peter McMullen, a vicar who writes for the Daily Telegraph has criticised the recently issued C of E’s Prayer for the financial crisis.
The comment was titled, “Financial crisis: the Church of England comes to the rescue with a naff prayer”.
The comment is as follows: Are you in need of comfort following the Chancellor’s brutal Autumn Statement? Well, take heart, for the Church of England has issued a prayer for our financial crisis.
It begins with a casual remark to the Almighty – as if God and the bloke who wrote the prayer were just two old men chewing the fat on the same park bench:
Lord God, we live in disturbing days.
It proceeds, as so many modern prayers do, to give spurious information to the Omniscient God:
Across the world prices rise,
debts increase,
markets are in turmoil,
jobs are taken away,
and fragile security is under threat.
Did you know that, God?
Notice also how the prayer is written as if it were a poem: the words not quite reaching the margins. Note also the anachronistic amidst and the cliched hack work in shifting sands.
I don’t object to prayers for particular needs, but only that the prayers betray some evidence of thought and are not doggerel. Perhaps they should produce a prayer for those tempted to compose a naff prayer?
Why not, in a crisis – especially in an economic crisis – turn to the New Testament where we can find words pithy and apt enough even for the hated bankers in the Square Mile:
Here we have no abiding City, but we seek one to come…
Peter Mullen
The Rev Dr Peter Mullen is Rector of St Michael, Cornhill and St Sepulchre-without-Newgate in the City of London. He is Chaplain to six Livery Companies of the City of London and has written for many publications including the Wall Street Journal.